apps – Seidenberg School News

Learning to love through astrology and putting color back into the world: software engineering class presents final application projects

While finals can be a stressful time for students each time they come around, they can also be the perfect time to work with classmates on projects they feel passionate about. The season for cramming and test taking can also be an opportunity for collaborative innovation. When the Software Engineering (CS389) class presented their final projects in the Seidenberg Lounge on May 15th, it seemed as though that innovative energy was thriving.

The leading professor for the class, Dr. Shahed Mustafa, reviewed the team projects with assistance from Professor Avery Leider and Dr. Christelle Scharff. The eight groups of undergraduate students presented software applications they created to tackle real-world problems and generate an environment of positivity.

The students worked with Android Studio, Photoshop, Firebase, GitHub, and numerous other applications to bring their ideas to life. The teams created apps in a Scrum framework starting from an idea. Their ideas ranged from a game featuring adorable bartending kittens to a chat room app that helps groups of friends and coworkers find the perfect meeting location. After their ideas were solidified, student groups identified their backlog (the load of work to be completed in the future) and completed a series of three sprints.

ClassGo

The application created by Jacob Hiban, Vivian Ng, and Stephanie Okereke titled, ClassGo, is a buying and selling platform tailored to Pace students. Users can buy or sell used classroom supplies like textbooks, lab materials, and more. The application features a homepage, search bar, selling and buying pages, and a capability to “favorite” the items the user likes best. Future improvements for the application include an updated user interface, homepage, chat, commenting section, and notification settings. These computer science mavens hope that their app can one day be a service that Pace students will choose to use over eBay, Mercari, or even Poshmark.

Kitten Klub

The makers behind Kitten Klub ask, “kittens and alcohol!? Who knew?” Well, they did! The application is a time management game set in the world of cats which was created by Samuel Gellar, Nicholas Vallarelli, Sammy Chen Li, and Anna Marinina. Targeted users play the game by creating drinks for the kittens they are bartending for. The game, which is only available for Apple devices at the moment, has nine levels that increase in difficulty.

EzAttend

The goal of EzAttend is to simplify the attendance taking process. Contributors, Edward Gervis, Raami Sharif, and Ian Groombridge worked together to make a one tap attendance app using Bluetooth. The application allows the teacher to create a class and take attendance, while also allowing students to see their attendance record.

Royal Closet

Royal Closet is tailored to the user. The fashion application captures user information, user market recycler view, avatar choice, and measurement comparisons to show the user what a chosen item of clothing could look like on their body by placing a version on their tailored avatar. Krutika Wadha, Tiara Hammond, and Yunting Yin designed this app to help individuals make fashion choices. They hope in the future to make it an inclusive e-commerce app with customizable avatars.

Lumattica

Lumattica is all about “putting color back into the world,” according to creators Austin Halper, Justin Sciglimpaglia, and Aayan Jalal. The app targets people who suffer from color blindness. The app works for both yellow-blue and red-green color confusion. Features include a field view, self-diagnosis, camera, and color quiz.

Lovescope: The Astrology Dating App

Lovescope: The Astrology Dating App is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a dating app specialized to each astrology sign. Creators Margarita Dominguez, Nick Krawczeniuk, Jennifer Rhau, and Minying He created the application to give users explanations of all planets, houses, and signs. The app integrates user profiles so users can create their own birth chart (gender options include non-binary) and uses a compatibility algorithm to see which users match together best!

translatAR

Yuliya Daroshka, Ivan Tang, Brandon DeLuca, and Jeffrey Cruz are the minds behind translatAR: an app that has the potential to be a direct competitor to Google lens. Its target audience is English speakers who travel abroad each year. The straight forward visual translator app is capable of helping users find the correct word for any object they take a picture of in 26 languages!

Fuse

“Meeting up with friends just got a whole lot easier,” according to the minds behind Fuse. The app helps groups meet up at a central and convenient location for all users. Creators Stephan Reyes, Manan Thakkar, Stephanie Philip, Kito Beriens, and Vincent Ajodhia created this app with multiple APIs to incorporate map and group-chat features. Whether a group wants to meet at a restaurant, bar, or park, this app helps them find the best option. This app solves all of those “where should we meet” problems by giving a solution that fits everyone’s needs.

These projects are all products of hard work and collaboration. Make sure to check out each app to fully experience how they function overall by scanning the QR codes on each poster. We’re proud of these software engineering students and what they created in just one semester.

Aldis and Nik Sipolins explain the future of brain training through VR

Aidis Sipolins, Harpreet & Avery — L to R: Avery, Aldis, and Harpeet at the NYVR Meetup on August 19th.

Aldis Sipolins, hailing from Toronto, Canada, was another notable attendee at last week’s New York Virtual Reality (NYVR) Meetup. Sipolins was there to demonstrate his immersive learning VR platform, Cerevrum, which he started based on his belief that neuroscience will eventually prove VR is a superior learning method. He calls it “neurogaming”, a combination of virtual reality, machine learning, and cognitive neuroscience. Aldis believes that those currently trying to improve their intelligence with brain training will eventually find what they are looking for in Virtual Reality assisted learning.

Aldis ran a virtual reality laboratory for one year at the University of Illinois while earning his PhD in Visual Cognition and Human Performance. During the Spring ’15 semester, the U of I had a new computer science class – Virtual Reality – which was taught by Professor Steven M. Lavalle. Professor Lavalle had previously been on leave, working as the Chief Scientist at Oculus (developer of the Oculus Rift) which Facebook acquired for $2 billion in 2014. Aldis’ experiences at his university eventually led him to start Cerevrum in April 2015.

At the Meetup, Seidenberg students Harpreet Wasan Singh and Avery Leider, who have been on the prowl for information concerning the latest advances in VR technology, were also able to interview Aldis and his brother, Nik, who joined him that night to help with the demonstration.

Harpreet: Since the time you started with VR until now, what are the most significant developments you have encountered?

Aldis: VR has changed enormously in the time I’ve been in the industry. We’ve gone from the screen-door effect in the [Oculus Rift Development Kit] DK1 to not being able to see pixels in HTC Vive. We’ve come from having to use a mouse and keyboard to having incredible motion controls and hand-tracking.

Nick Sipolins & Harpreet Wasan — Nik Sipolins shows Harpreet how to use Cerevrum

Nik: The first and most significant transition is the ability to run [these technologies] on your phone. That’s going to be the democratizing thing in VR – not having to purchase a device that is purposefully built as a Virtual Reality machine. And whether or not [you use VR] with the Samsung Gear VR or with Google Cardboard, or with any other – I’m sure people will figure out many novel ways to attach their phones to their faces – that’s going to be the near future of VR.

Harpreet: Can you explain what you are trying to do with Cerevrum and Virtual Reality?

Aldis: Cerevrum is exciting to me because Virtual Reality opens up so much potential for brain learning. Brain training right now is an unexplored field of Virtual Reality. We’re going to be the first in VR with a brain training app. Brain Training VR opens up a bunch of possibilities of what you can do at a neuropsychological level. Cerevrum adds the missing piece of the puzzle, which is VR. Right now, brain training doesn’t work and it is easy to see why. Pressing buttons on a tiny screen only goes so far. The feeling of presence that you get in VR means that you use the same set of cognitive skills that you do in everyday life. That’s the point of brain training, to get better at the skills you use in everyday life. We live in immersive 3D environments, so I think that it makes sense to learn in them too.

Harpreet: What else about VR is exciting to you?

Nik: 360 degree photographs. If you’ve never experienced it, get a Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift and look at a 360 degree photograph. It’s stunning! People make the same face, they all do the same things, they look around themselves, and are dumbstruck. What I also saw that was cool was a 360 degree video of an acoustic performance. It was a band in a small space and they brought in a virtual reality camera and with your Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift headset on, you really felt like part of the performance in this intimate space. What these guys were doing was putting concerts in virtual reality. If you don’t like being in a crowded bar, or you have anxiety issues or can’t afford tickets to the New York symphony orchestra, with this technology you can be in your living room and feel like you are at the New York Philharmonic.

Harpreet: There are students at Pace University who want to get into Virtual Reality. What do you recommend to them?

Nik: Learn Unity. That seems to be the first skill. Come up with a cool little app that you can develop for VR. Currently the user base is small, as it’s an early technology.

Aldis: Pick up Unity. It is free and it is super easy to learn. I was a grad student struggling with programming and MATLAB, and within a few months [on Unity] I was making 3D experiments. It’s very easy. So, pick up Unity, pick up programming, find a good artist, and do whatever you want. Follow your dreams.

Students at Nokia’s DVLUP Day in NYC

Just this past Saturday, March 22nd, Nokia hosted DVLUP Day in Manhattan’s new Microsoft offices. A group of students from Seidenberg attended together to learn about mobile development for Microsoft products. The goal of DVLUP Days, as they sweep across the country, is to generate Windows Mobile developers. DVLUP itself is “a loyalty program designed by Nokia to help developers get their ideas into the marketplace, optimize them, and be successful” (DVLUP FAQ).

Undergraduate Seidenberg student, Brooke Ribelin, spoke of her experience at DVLUP Day with all the other Seidenberg attendees. She explained that at the event there were three separate tracks, with different goals for each. Track One was geared towards getting started in App Studio (Cloud-based with HTML5), Track Two was for advanced Windows development, which included working with maps, imaging, and Cloud development, and Track Three taught attendees how to use Unity for game development. Each track suited different skill-sets and interests, so our group of students split up between themselves to work on exactly what they wanted.

DVLUPDAY2 — From Brooke’s Instagram, as she built games with Unity, featuring one of the many tattoos from the day.

Brooke also mentioned the prizes and raffles that continued throughout the day — from headphones to fun tattoos to new phones to backpacks. Seemingly everyone left the event with all kinds of free stuff. Not only did participants get new gizmos galore, but those who can publish an app in the Windows store will receive a free Windows phone.

After spending the entire day at Microsoft for the event, Brooke says she greatly appreciated the introduction to Unity. Being quite new to the ecosystem of Unity, and by learning about it in a group format, she has the tools to continue using what she built at DVLUP Day to turn it into something for the app store.

Pace Freshmen Place Fourth in Mobile Challenge

Much to their surprise and satisfaction, Peter Franceschini (BS/CS) and John Robb (BA/Comm/Art) placed fourth in the University Mobile Challenge for their mobile app CANDOO. The event was held in Barcelona, Spain in early March. This achievement allows them to advance to the GSMA Mobile Health University Challenge scheduled for late May in Cape Town, South Africa. Continue reading “Pace Freshmen Place Fourth in Mobile Challenge”